Stanley Kubrick's hotly awaited adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling ghost story was considered a letdown on its release, particularly by the novel's fans, who were outraged by changes to the plot (Kubrick kills off a character who survived in the book) and disappointed that, owing to the limitations of the special effects of the era, the hedge animals that came to life in the original story were replaced by a maze. But the film has gained in stature over the years; its tracking shots of Danny riding his tricycle along the hotel's corridors made it among the first productions to exploit the potential of the Steadicam, while many set-pieces and lines of dialogue ("Redrum", the spooky twins, "Heeeere's Johnny!") are now so well known they're been parodied countless times by other films or TV shows. And the discordant, modernist soundtrack (Penderecki, Ligeti, Bartók) has few equals.

Jack Nicholson, in the first of his great over-the-top performances of the 80s, doesn't just chew the scenery – he swallows it whole. His character, Jack Torrance, is a would-be writer who gets a caretaking job in the Overlook, an isolated Colorado hotel with an unpleasant history. His sarcastic resentment of his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son (Danny Lloyd) propel his inexorable slide back into alcoholism, which transforms that resentment into a murderous rage, arguably even more terrifying than the rivers of blood, the "crazy lady" in room 237 or Lloyd the phantom barman.

The Shining is also notorious for holding the record for the number of takes of a single scene (127 for Wendy swinging a baseball bat, or 148 of hotel chef Dick Hallorann explaining "the shining", depending on sources) and for the director's bullying of Duvall, which can be glimpsed in the "making of" directed by his daughter, Vivian – a fascinating complement to her father's movie.